Space Bar: All Pop, No Culture

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If I Only Had an iPod...

If you gave a lame Valentine's gift this year, here's your shot at redemption. Nothing says I love you better than an engraved iPod. And what could be more romantic than viewing your wedding proofs on an iPod? Tech wonders never cease…

All this iPod talk brings us to our favorite blog diversion: If I Only Had an iPod. Here's where we toss the keys to the iPod over to visiting authors and let them take it for a test drive.

Today's guest DJ is Bill Gordon, author of Mary After All. Kirkus may call Gordon "simply irresistible," but having spent almost a decade on Jersey's left bank, we just call him a boy from the old neighborhood. You're in good musical hands today…enjoy!

iPod Playlist by Bill Gordon

Music was incredibly important to me while I was growing up in Jersey City (home of the legendary independent freeform radio station, WFMU): my grandfather was a musician; there was nearly always live music at weddings and communions and confirmation parties; and when I wrote a novel using my hometown as a setting, all those torch songs and jazz standards I remembered hearing throughout my childhood (my parents and their friends seemed to know every word) came to mind, and stayed with me as I was writing the book -- after all, Mary After All has an entire chapter about singing. The main character, Mary Nolan (nee Marelli), a Jersey City native who comes of age during the turbulent 1970s (and discovers her own route to independence along the way), is very opinionated, and although she might not have an iPod, she would certainly offer a list of picks at the slightest provocation.

1) Dream When You're Feeling Blue, Ella Fitzgerald (also popularized by Hoboken's favorite son, Frank Sinatra): Mary reminisces about singing this song as a child in her grandfather's downtown Jersey City speakeasy -- although by her time, it's a "saloon" where old timers gather to drink and play cards, legally, for the most part... "I'd sing the song about smoke rings, and dreaming -- the only one my father taught me himself..." Her friend Charlie Cupacoffee, then a waiter, would grab a cigar from one of the men and help her “act out the song” by blowing smoke rings – the beginning of a love interest (at least for him, at this point)… and a partnership than can never be.

2) That Old Devil Called Love, Billie Holiday: Mary is 12 and she's just finished singing this one when she notices that her voice sounds better when Charlie Cupacoffee, no longer a waiter but still a fixture at the bar, is watching her. She tells her mother, who reacts violently and bans her from returning, telling Mary, "Not him...This is not the life I want for you." She says this because Charlie is part of the small-time Mafia circle that Mary’s mother wants to move beyond – and wants her daughter to move beyond. Of course, Mary tries to sneak back despite her mother's admonishment; at that age, who wouldn't?

3) Backwater Blues, Bessie Smith: I had this particular song in mind – and the mind of Mary, as I imagined it – as I had her describe her other musical choices for the saloon: “I’d sing sad songs – the ones my mother listened to when she was alone; when my father was out playing [in a band and with other women]; when all her friends had gone home and the kitchen was empty…” In a way it’s a harbinger, this choice of material, of things to come in the book; a nod to the fact one day Mary will “sing her own sad songs,” so to speak, while she sits alone at a kitchen table waiting for her philandering husband to come home. It’s also a strong indicator, early on, of the world and mentality she’s coming from. Of course Mary will turn out to be much less passive than her mother – or the character in Ms. Smith’s song for that matter – when it comes to dealing with the “blues” (at least those blues inflicted by another person).

4) Heart of My Heart, The Four Aces: This song was written by Ben Ryan back in 1926, so it's been around the block a time or two, and a popular 1953 recording by The Four Aces for Decca Records ultimately reached #7 on the Billboard chart. Near the end of the book, Mary's father, a lifelong chain smoker who will soon lose his battle with lung cancer, pulls out the old accordion for one final, poignant sing-along with his daughter. This song of friendship and their almost-but-not-quite-perfect attempt to sing it together seems to open them up, bring them to a new level of honesty: it’s their greatest moment of intimacy in the book.

5) Swinging on a Star, Frank Sinatra : After her mother-in-law dies, never really approving of the woman (Mary) who divorced her son, Mary looks back with appreciation upon the small bit of common ground they eventually shared (as they kept in touch over the years) amidst the vast gulf that seemed to exist between them. Small, shared remnants come back… like singing this happy-go-lucky tune with her “optional mother-in-law, the only kind to have. She always kept a place for me at her Thanksgiving table” while cooking a twenty-five-pound turkey, toes tapping on the kitchen floor.